


Improvement

by laireshi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Fic, dad tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 13:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: The first time Tony holds Morgan, he’s absolutely terrified.





	Improvement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Comicsohwhyohwhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicsohwhyohwhy/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
> 
> Considering your dad Tony feels...

The first time Tony holds Morgan, he’s absolutely terrified. He’s good at delicate work, his hands steady enough he could defuse a bomb, his soldering work nothing short of perfect. But this? A tiny, little human being that he helped bring into this world, that relies on him for everything?

Tony can’t do it. It’s a good thing he’s sitting, because he thinks he’d start shaking otherwise, he’d drop her and—

Morgan smiles at him. She’s a baby. Logically Tony knows she’d smile at anyone. It doesn’t mean anything.

But she _smiles at him_. His _daughter_ , safe in his arms, smiling.

Tony lets himself think it will be okay.

After all, Tony has the perfect parental guide. He just has to do everything differently than Howard did.

***

Tony cuddles her as often as he can, holding her at nights when she keeps crying, and if he’s tired, it doesn’t matter. When Morgan’s head rests on his chest he feels like maybe he does have a heart. 

She starts to sleep through the night as she grows older, but she keeps falling asleep in his lap anyway, her hands around his neck.

She’s precious, and Tony dreads the day when he’ll inevitably disappoint her.

***

Tony is three when he manages to sneak into Howard’s lab for the first time. He’s never been there before, Howard making sure he would never be disturbed, but Tony is _curious_. He’s seen every other part of the mansion, and he knows Howard can _build things here_. Building things sounds like something Tony would want to do.

There are computers there and Tony’s fingers itch when he looks at them. Howard told him he wouldn’t be allowed to use one until he can build an engine all on his own.

He trots over to one. He reaches out. 

He hears the steps, but he’s not fast enough. Howard sees him and slaps his hand away. 

Tony can’t leave his room for a week after that.

***

Morgan never has to sneak into Tony’s lab. 

He takes her there from the start, when she’s too young to understand anything and just sleeps at his side as he’s coding new projects that he can’t do with the AI interface in the other parts of the house. He keeps taking her there once she starts to walk, albeit only for short moments and never when he actually has to work: it’s too dangerous now. He can multitask, but he’s not gonna risk dividing his attention between any project and his _kid_. Morgan gets all of him, always.

When she’s three, Tony’s already working with her on building her first robot. Dum-E doesn’t know what they’re doing, but he likes bringing Morgan colourful ribbons. Morgan’s robot, as she very seriously explained to Tony, is going to take care of Dum-E so he stops knocking into the walls.

Tony loves her so much.

***

_What if I’m doing it wrong_? Tony thinks when insomnia rears its head. _What if I take one wrong step and mess up the rest of her life?_

Sometimes on those nights he pads softly to his lab, careful not to wake anyone up, and he drowns himself in his work. (Not alcohol; never alcohol anymore.)

Thanos may have ruined the world and everyone’s lives, but Tony’s damn well going to make sure Morgan won’t grow up in a post-apocalyptic dystopia. He works on it all: more renewable energy projects, prosthetics, resistant crops; he starts scholarships for education and finances medical research.

It won’t be enough to make up for his mistakes, but he hopes it’ll be _something_.

***

Tony is five when he builds the engine.

Howard scoffs at him, commenting on the low energy output. 

Tony’s already starting to understand he’ll never be good enough.

***

Tony has always had a suit of armour made to Morgan’s size ever since she was a baby—just in case, and he hopes like hell she’ll never have to use it, but better safe than sorry—but he doesn’t mention it when she looks at him, one metre 5 centimetres height full of authority, and says, “I want to build an armour too.”

“Sure,” he agrees. “Picked your colours?”

Morgan gives him a _look_. “Functionality first,” he says like a tech expert that she’s clearly growing up to be.

Tony ruffles her hair. “Good answer.”

“Also, blue,” Morgan says as she catches his hand and steers him to his own workshop. “Like uncle Rhodey.”

Tony looks at her with mock indignation. “Isn’t Iron Man your fave?”

“Black Widow is my fave,” she says like it should be obvious, and yeah, all right, fair. “But she doesn’t have an amour.”

Tony inputs the code to his lab and says, “The first thing is . . .”

Morgan listens to his every word.

***

He’s selfish. He knows that much. He’s hiding in his house in the forest, away from the reality, a bubble of happiness that extends to his immediate family only. 

Not even that: Rhodey’s still fighting. Tony should be, too, but . . . 

He’s lost Peter. He can’t lose Morgan, too. 

If he works on this new life—if he doesn’t risk it—maybe things will turn out _fine_. Maybe his daughter won’t grow up to hate him, maybe he’ll get to see her graduate and change the world. Or maybe she’ll decide she wants a quiet life instead: as long as she’s happy, so is Tony. 

He’s lucky. He’s so bloody lucky. He hasn’t lost Pepper, he has Morgan; he’s lost pretty much everything else, but Morgan makes it worth it.

And yet.

Not everyone’s been that lucky. Most people weren’t.

Sleep eludes him more with each passing day. He should be Iron Man. He should be out there—

Doing what? Everything’s been done and said, and they lost. They _lost_. 

And he has Morgan. He’s right where he should be. 

***

Steve Rogers walks back into his life and ruins it, the way he tends to do, with barely a few words.

_Did you know; **yes**_.

_**I’m sorry, Tony, but he’s my friend** ; So was I._

_**Time travel**_.

Tony _can_ undo it all. Does he want Morgan to grow up with a father who turned his back on the world?

A possible alternative is this, though: a camera switched on and Tony recording his goodbyes. 

***

He hugs Morgan before he sets out for the Avengers compound, longer, closer than usually. 

“I’m five,” she says. “Just promise you’ll be back soon, dad.”

_But what if I’m not?_

Tony kisses her forehead and leaves.

(The one thing he’d never wanted to do.)

***

Tony Stark is twenty-one when he loses his parents.

Morgan Stark is twenty-one when she morphs magic with technology into a device that reaches into the time stream and saves her father’s life.


End file.
